Do you guys use anything to hold down the ballast on a garden RR? Every time I clean the tracks I sweep ballast all over the place. I tried Portland cement mixed with the rock but that didn’t work the way I wanted, any ideas?
I use crushed limestone for ballast. Once it gets wet it tends to bind itself together. Other then that, no I don’t use anything to bind my ballast.
A club member had made mention about a bonding agent you can put on ballast and it locks it in place. It’s intended for gravel and sand between hand laid rock walkways. they found it at home depot. I apologize but the name escapes me.
Terry
I use chicken grit . Its actually tiny pieces of crushed granite and doesn’t need a binder cuz it has sharp edges that lock together. I want my track to float so in the summer when its hot the track can expand without kinking. I had one area that was between two roads about 20 feet long that would look like a snake when it was hot out. I solved that problem by using a expanding track section. I do reballast in the spring in some spots but I like doing it. My nephew Jacob and I work on it together . He likes to fill the hopper cars and deliver them to me where I need them. We make it a anual event that we both look forward to.
Terry Burr said:
A club member had made mention about a bonding agent you can put on ballast and it locks it in place. It’s intended for gravel and sand between hand laid rock walkways. they found it at home depot. I apologize but the name escapes me.
Terry
Polymeric Sand.
I use crushed basalt rock for my ballast. Like Mike, my track floats so it can move with the weather just like the real railroads. But of course that also means I re-ballast every spring. It doesn’t take every long but it allows me to re-level any track that moved because of the snow and ice we get during the winter months.
The crushed basalt just like the crushed limestone that David uses has fine dust particles of the parent material and after I re-ballast I wet down the ballast and the dust fines binds the material together and doesn’t go anywhere. That is until my cat rolls in the ballast. I can always tell where she has been on the layout because there will be a bare spot in the ballast around the track. But it’s easliy fixed.
Chuck
I use Quikrete concrete bonding adhesive diluted with about 5 parts of water. I apply it with an old Windex or similar sprayer to #10 chicken grit. You’ll want to wipe down the tops of the rails while the solution is still wet or you will have sticky rails for a while, and if you apply it too heavily, it will leave a white film on the ties. It is also a good idea before applying the solution to carefully brush the sand grains off the ties and sides of the rails, otherwise they will be stuck and then be hard to get off later. Just be patient and take your time.
I use 1/4"pea gravel, stays pretty good,
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I use scale rocks for ballast! Actually it is 3/8th grey stone and it stays pretty good but up close they are too big. In some back areas where the ground is level and the ballast tends to spread out I have used strips of wood to build a channel to keep it together. In other ares that are closer to visitors I have built walls of stone and wood cribbing to keep the ballast in.
In the past I have thought about using plastic gutters on the straight sections. This could be secured to the ground with spikes and then filled with ballast and dirt brought up to the sides. That way the ballast wouldn’t migrate sideways or down. It is amazing how ballast can disappear.
I use a granite tennis court grit. It also has a lot of dust and when wetted, it firms up pretty well.
I have in the past tried all of the solutions mentioned above, and to be honest, none of them was particularly wrong.
The one that looked the best, ballast and Portland cement mixed. Came with the most problems.
When the track expanded it forced it,s way out of the ties, the ties had no where to expand to as they were fixed.
I use that stone dust (crusher fines) Its the left over stuff from the quarries usually used as a base when putting pavers in. The dust once wet holds everything together and all you see is small rocks. Holds up to everything natures throws at it.
Chicken grit on our layout, perfect size and when mixed the perfect colour, too. Using Weldbond for the elevated sections and if necessary will use the polymer binder the roofers use on flat roofs.
First I need to put all the track in place.
Ken Brunt said:
Terry Burr said:
A club member had made mention about a bonding agent you can put on ballast and it locks it in place. It’s intended for gravel and sand between hand laid rock walkways. they found it at home depot. I apologize but the name escapes me.
Terry
Polymeric Sand.
The problem with polymeric sand however, especially in the northeast, it expands/contracts with moisture, when this happens it can slowly cause track to pull apart at the joiners, once the sand dries again it is like concrete. It will eventually wash out, it just takes a lot of water to break down the polymeric glue, which will happen. You can soak the track to remoisten the sand and re-align it but that’s a pain in the arse
You can see in the lower right of this picture where some of the poly sand has washed away
There is no perfect ballast. Sometimes… quite often, actually, I think that Fr. Fred has the right idea. He eschews ballast altogether. Too much of a bother, he says.
I use the same crushed basalt Chuck Inlow uses, we probably get it from the same quarry, though different dealers. Mine is 3/8 inch minus, and if memory serves, so is Chuck’s. It hangs together in all but the most serious assaults by our flock of chickens. Each spring I have to go out and fuss with it, as I have to do before each run, but that is not the ballast’s fault, it is those damn chickens! 
Steve Featherkile said:
There is no perfect ballast. Sometimes… quite often, actually, I think that Fr. Fred has the right idea. He eschews ballast altogether. Too much of a bother, he says.
I use the same crushed basalt Chuck Inlow uses, we probably get it from the same quarry, though different dealers. Mine is 3/8 inch minus, and if memory serves, so is Chuck’s. It hangs together in all but the most serious assaults by our flock of chickens. Each spring I have to go out and fuss with it, as I have to do before each run, but that is not the ballast’s fault, it is those damn chickens!
I thought Rooster lived in PA
Bob, this is one of those deals, as you can see, where you ask twenty guys and you’ll get twenty answers, none of them right or wrong, but I’ll chime in anyway:
Placing an inherently expandable/contractible item like track and ties in a rigid (glued or cemented in place) element just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Something’s got to give, as they say, and you know it’ll usually be the track.
I’m also thinking that if you use a drywall sanders tool and the finest drywall paper it all floats along the tops of the rails and you shouldn’t have any trouble with scattering the ballast all over the place?
I use chicken grit, but mostly I use crusher fines. I can get them at the sand and gravel place for one dollar per five-gallon bucket and it sifts down to about two gallons of ballast, which goes a long way. I don’t attempt to glue or cement it in place; I’d rather reshape it now and then if I have to.
Good luck!
A good solid base ballasted with limestone gravel is used here. Working on a heritage railway I knew how the real guys built a railway. None of the ballast is glued or cemented. I do replace with new from time to time as birds, wind and rain do tend to scatter it from time to time.
I regard it as part of running a railroad. Besides, it is good exercise and keeps the old limbs in working order - even if it hurts from time to time. lol
However, my railroad is small so others might find this quite laborious.
Alan, and that is partly why my small railroad has never implemented the expansion plans one nor two. A small railroad is easier for me to maintain.
Like many have said, each spring I have to re-level and regrade, and there is usually a mid summer touch up if anything has shifted. I use crushed limestone, probably quarter minus, but its not labeled as such. Since my railroad is mostly curves, I don’t notice the expansion and contraction so much until the spring rehab. I have a few joints that have pulled apart during the winter, even though I use rail clamps. If the track were fastened down, I would expect more open joints during the winter, and in the heat of the summer, I could only imagine the sun kinks I would have. So like the fulkl sized railroads, my track floats in a firm bed of compacted crushed rock.
I supposed the closest any of us can come to the “definitive” answer is to ask where you live, and what the climate is like.
Here in Sacramento, I never used any binder in my ballast for years, but I had to redo it each spring because the winter rains (when we used to have them) would wash the ballast away.
I’ve started using “rapid set” (only found at Home Depot in this area) mixed dry into the granite ballast I found in Gilroy a few years back. Rapid Set IS what it says, so I use it dry. Shape the ballast, then using about a four to one mix of ballast to RS, set the track into the ballast. Then a fine mist with a garden hose, and it sets up quickly. If you’ve got to move the track, hitting the ballast with a hammer breaks it up easily.